She Whom You Love Is Ill

A Story by noosepaper

based upon the story of Lazarus and the poem Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath, as you can tell through the quoted allusions

She whom you love is ill.

I am used to those words, coming at me every once in a while when she becomes bored. Boredom is the manger for insurrection. Boredom, isolation, insecurity all conjure the victim into a ball of string ready to unravel. She likes whispering internalized threats into the phone at me but I don’t have a response anymore.

The First Time it was a frenzy. My worries and guilt all circled into a hurricane capable of knocking down her door and galloping in on a white horse to whisk her away to the elixir of life�"a hospital bed. In fact, I’ll admit that I relished in it. She needed me, she was martyred, and she was a victim. These elements are all very attractive to men who didn’t have fathers prevalent in their lives, and I, as well, fell for it. The First Time was an accident, is what she said. She said she couldn’t sleep, the nightmares were boiling over into real life, and she needed sleep to contain them. I believed in her.

The Second Time she had not informed me of the goings on of her insides. Instead she let it fester inside of the crawl space, clutched in a fetal position with old, dead tears crusted onto her eye pits. Her spine was rounded with the knobs poking out like a porcupine’s quills, protecting the fragile insides. I found her after an evening of incessant phone calls and bangings on the door. She was crumpled up and disposed of like a drinking straw wrapper with every color siphoned out of her body. I called her name, loud louder loudest but she never lifted herself up. The worms had started crawling over her, sticky and glistening like sweat, and with the tenderest disgust, I peeled them off one by one. I slung her over my back like potatoes and carried her to my car and took her to the hospital.

This is the Third Time, and it’s all about theatrics. Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce to you the disappearing artist. Observe her perfect little body and watch close�"she might evaporate while you blink. Unwrap her and see the scars of past performances. It’s despicable. Contemptible. I despise her for this.

She’ll want to return and re-assimilate in broad daylight, and allow everyone to take a peek. Have you seen where the put the tube? The bandage is right here. I’ll unravel it, just for you. Make the audience feel special; make them think they’re the only ones who’ve glanced upon the wound. She’s an expert at attention. And they all shout “A Miracle!” And she takes a bow.

But I do not want to assist her in the preparation for her role. I do not want to be the stage manager for this even more convoluted version of Waiting for Godot. I’m sick of it. Fool me once, is the phrase, and I’ve been fooled twice and I’m not in it for the third round. Or any other round. She thinks she’s a cat and she’s got six more times to f**k me over. I leisurely finger the Time magazine on my coffee table, there’s a mildly interesting article about the academic viewpoint of the Book of Revelation. I skim it. I am not interested in this article, but I am interested in making her wait. I lollygag around my house, making sure to see if I have everything: my keys, my wallet, my cigarettes. I check at least four times to make sure I have everything I could possible need, meandering about the hallways and around the couch until finally, with a sigh of defeatism, I leave.

I expected to see her lying lavishly across the bed, splayed out like a dissection, ready for my entry. And there she is, lounging on her bed in a romantic lace nightgown, looking like a broken doll�"just the way she planned it. The empty bottle glued to her hand, her performance was to a tee. I kneel above her limp body, gazing at her unconscious face. I know she is an emotion leech, but I do not want to lose this. She whom I love is ill. She’s always been ill. I weep. I am at fault. If I’d arrived earlier, when she called, I could have licked her wounds.

And through some strange miracle augmented by my tears, she stirs. Her soft and watery eyes flitter open like some Scorsese scene, and she is awakes.

I’ve done it again.

You’ve risen from the ashes far too many times.

I’m Lady Lazarus, don’t you know?

She is a smiling woman. This smug sense of awareness rips off my nice face to expose the bleeding, muscle tissue monster that chomps at the air in fury. I hate her, I hate what she does, and how she expects that I will follow her with a mop and bucket to sanitize her sins. Her washed up face sickens me suddenly. I cannot stay with this dying artist, who will only resurrect herself without any trouble at all. I am not needed.

I rise from this pile of bones and onto my feet. I have performed my pitiable services for her, now it’s time to leave.

I believe in you. Where are you going?

Back to life, I only came to reanimate you.

But I am your opus. I am your valuable pure gold baby�"

That melts to a shriek, I know it. I know the whole thing.

I’ve heard every repeated verse drip from her lips like wallowing wine that intoxicates her with self pity. Every time she’s done it, she’s left the page of the book open to that one. Lady Lazarus. I am Lady Lazarus. But does she expect me to be the one who raises her from the dead? I am not Jesus.

Do I terrify?

No, you repulse. Out of the ash, you rise like with your read hair, and you eat men like air.